4 Bridgewater, Branchburg Students Awarded National Merit Scholarship

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — A total of four Bridgewater and Branchburg students were awarded National Merit Scholarships.

One Branchburg student was awarded Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarships and three awarded the National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. The corporate sponsored scholarships are financed by about 200 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations and provide annual stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year.

Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarship Winners:

• Megan C. Flynn, of Branchburg and student at Somerville High School, received the National Merit AON Scholarship. She says her probable career field is engineering.

Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors. Corporate sponsors provide National Merit Scholarships for finalists who are children of their employees, who are residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

Three Bridgewater and Branchburg students also received a National Merit $2,500 Scholarship, which are financed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

National Merit $2,500 Scholarship Winners:

1. James C. Liu of Branchburg and student at Somerville High School says his probable career field is Computer Science.
2. Trisha Kaundinya of Bridgewater and a student at Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School says her probable career field is Bioengineering.
3. Akash J. Kumar of Bridgewater and a student of Pingry School in Basking Ridge says his probable career field is Chemical Engineering.

This $2,500 award is supported by National Merit Scholarship Corporation's own funds. National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners are the Finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. These Scholars were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the finalists and their high schools.

More than 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program. About 16,000 semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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